White Paper: Gun Laws and Suicide

Aside from buybacks and laws that directly reduce gun ownership, firearm laws can only have an effect on the suicide rate of populations not previously exposed to firearms.

Most firearm laws are not passed with reducing suicides as their primary intent, thereby attenuating any relationship between said laws and suicide reduction.

Laws passed in Israel and Switzerland designed to limit suicides among soldiers by reducing gun access have seen significant results among the target population.

States with stricter gun laws in the US, particularly Permit-to-Purchase laws, see significantly lower rates of overall suicide, with little evidence of a substitution effect from firearms to other means.

Australia’s gun buyback and suite of other reforms in 1996 resulted in a significant reduction in suicides according to multiple studies.